This is part 3 of a 3-part series on what each Dosha should be focusing on for the New Year! I dive into the lifestyle, food, exercise, self-care and habitual suggestions for each Dosha in my modern Ayurvedic approach. Be sure to listen to all parts to thoroughly understand your Dosha, those around you and recognize that we are all all three Doshas in varying amounts!

Intro + Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

Let’s take the discussion further in the Mind-Body Balancers FB group: www.facebook.com/groups/1213662491998309/www.facebook.com/groups/1213662491998309/

Discover Your Dosha (Mind-Body Type) with my free quiz: iamsahararose.com

Connect with me for daily Ayurvedic and modern spiritual wisdom at Instagram: @iamsahararose Facebook.com/iamsahararose Twitter.com/iamsahararose

Order Eat Feel Fresh: A Contemporary Plant-Based Ayurvedic Cookbook and receive my Essential Oils for Your Doshas E-book FREE here: eatfeelfresh.com/book

 

Episode 155 – New Year’s Resolutions for Kaphas with Sahara Rose

By Sahara Rose

Welcome back to this three-part episode all about the New Year’s resolutions/intentions for each dosha. If you have not listened to the last two episodes I highly recommend checking them out. The first one about vata is where I dive really deep into what Ayurveda is all about, what the doshas are all about. So if it’s your first time hearing about this, your first time listening to the podcast, welcome. And if you don’t know about Ayurveda, I recommend just going back two episodes, listening to the beginning part of that where I discuss what Ayurveda is, what the doshas are, what I’m even talking about, and it’s going to help make this episode make so much sense.

And if you’ve been here, you’ve read my books, you’re an Ayurveda pro, let’s just hop into this episode. So kapha, kapha is the earth energy. It is grounded, it is peaceful, it is calm, it is loving, it is nourishing, nurturing, it is the mother. So people who have a lot of kapha, they are like the sweethearts. Like they’re those people you meet that are just like, “Mm,” you just like want to hug them, they’re just super cute, everything about them is adorable, and they’re really just kind to everyone they meet, they easily make friends with people, they’re the people who are like, “I love you,” like super fast, and you’re like, “Oh my god, you love me?” So they have that just like adorable, cute energy to them.

Now when it comes to the New Year’s, kaphas really need to take it gently on themselves. Because they don’t do well with like super overbearing New Year’s resolutions, and that’s something that they actually probably know about themselves. So they’re not going to be like, “Get ripped, make a million dollars,” like that’s very pitta, and they’re not like, “Win an Academy Award and like fly to the moon,” that’s very vata. But kapha is like all about boundaries, self-care, movement. These are the things that really matter to kaphas.

So their New Year’s Resolutions are something like learn how to put myself first, exercise even one dance class a week, practice self-love, take essential oil and CBD bath bomb baths, stuff like that. In fact, on my Instagram, @iamsahararose on Instagram, I made these cute little New Year’s resolutions for each dosha and I kind of like wrote them out how that dosha would do it. So the kapha one is like doodly, and really cute, and like hearts and starts and like adorable. The pitta one is like on like a white sheet of paper, like very formulaic, and then the vata one is like they’re just all over the place, like doodly, and super cerebral. So even the way that we do things like write have to do with our doshas. I mean I could literally just geek out on this stuff forever, which I guess is what I do, but it’s really cool to look at how the weight that we were designed is going to impact the way that we even do things like set New Year’s resolutions.

So kaphas really need to learn in 2019 to put themselves first, that’s totally correct. Because kaphas are very, very giving people, they put others in front of themselves,, which is what makes them so nice, but also what makes them depleted. So kaphas will often make sure that their friends are okay, that their spouse or their significant other is doing well. And they’ll put all their energy on other people that they end up feeling depleted.

Now this is a different type of depletion than the pitta depletion, which is more from like high workload. Whereas the kapha depletion is more like energetically giving too much, so it’s very different if you look at it subtly. So a pitta may give too much because they’re working, because they’re achieving, and that often is for others, it could be to make money to support your family, or because you’re providing a service that helps other people, or just because you feel like you need to, to feel respected, loved, worthy, et cetera.

But it’s come, the vessel through their burnout is through the work. Whereas for kaphas the vessel of their depletion—I won’t call it burnout, that’s way more fiery—it’s more a depletion, that’s coming from giving too much to others and not being able to set good boundaries. So that could look like at work, you know, let’s say you work in customer service, and like the customers come in and they’re like yelling at you all the time, and you just take it to heart. Or you are in human resources and all of the, you know, tiffs going on between your colleagues like really just upsets you. Or maybe you’re a mom and you’re just giving so much to your family, and you don’t even have time to exercise or wash your hair, just do like basic things. So that is going to be that kapha depletion, that’s what that looks like.

So for resolutions it has to really do with setting that boundary. I imagine a moat, like you’re creating a moat around yourself. This is something I had to do like earlier this year like in May, meditating on that moat, and that moat allows you to decide what do I want to come into my energetic vortex. So not everyone that wants to be in your space is actually welcome from you to be in that space. And that doesn’t make you selfish, that just makes you wise because in this life there’s going to be a lot of people who want a lot of things from you, and if you try to be everything for everyone, you’re going to end up being nothing for yourself. So people may want, you know, you to help them with this, or to collaborate on that, or you to join their business venture.

There’s going to be a lot of asks, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We can’t get mad at people for asking, you know, sometimes we get mad, “Ugh, why are they asking me to do that? Like don’t they respect my time? Don’t they respect me?” Like no, they’re just actually asking a question they genuinely don’t know the answer most times. And you can say no, like you’re not expected to say yes to everything that you’re asked to do, and that has been a major lesson that I’ve had to learn. That people can ask me to do things and I have to honestly answer and say, “No, this is not really a priority in my life this year.”

So in 2019, it’s a lot of saying no, and saying no will allow you to choose what you say yes to. So really hone in on what you want to achieve this year, what are the projects that really ring true to your heart, and what are the things that, you know, you still have to keep doing because it’s like part of your job or whatever that maybe you’ll phase out of later, but there’s still things that you have to do. And really get focused, like create that priority triangle, which I talk about, which is creating a triangle for yourself. And on the tippy top of that triangle it’s like what needs to be done, like absolute need. And then from there it can go into, okay, what could be done later, and later, and later, and later.

And then bottom is like what are the things you actually don’t really need to do? You can outsource, you can delegate to someone else, you can just bow out of that responsibility. And I know that when you have so many responsibilities it seems like you can’t, but you actually can. We can always change our circumstances so let’s say you’re a mom and right now your obligations are waking up the kids, and making breakfast, and taking them to school, and packing their lunch, and then picking them up from school, and then cleaning the house the whole day, and then taking them to all their after school activities, and then making dinner, and then doing laundry. And it’s like you look at your schedule, you’re like there’s nothing I could delegate, I don’t have the money for a house cleaner, I don’t have the money for help, so you could be in that state.

So I would tell you in that state to focus on the slots of time that you still do have, and that could be like, you know, are you actually spending the whole day doing things? Are you being as diligent as possible as you could with your tasks? What would it look like if you use some of your skills to work on something that you could create some sort of income during the day so you could spend that income and delegating all the things that maybe you don’t need to do. For example, having a house cleaner come once every two weeks to just do the heavy duty cleaning.

You know, we have a lot more time on our hands that we think and sometimes we get into victim mode and this victim mode says like, “You don’t understand how hard my life is, I have so many obligations, I have so many responsibilities. No one has it as hard as I do.” And it’s not true, that’s actually a story that we’re creating for ourselves, and it’s a paradigm that we’re creating for ourselves. By us taking everything on, we’re essentially burdening ourselves with responsibilities, but there are other people out there who also have kids, who also have jobs, who are also doing things who haven’t taken on all of those responsibilities. Or they did, and then they decided that that’s no longer for them, and they’re creating value in new ways.

So it doesn’t make you lazy, it doesn’t mean you’re just gonna sit around and watch the “Housewives” all day, but it means that you’re going to use your skills. Like this could be the year of you actually using the skills that you have and learning how to monetize it so then you could use that income to hire help, house cleaner, a food delivery service, whatever it is that you really need that would open up some time for you.

So kaphas, they have a lot of just caring, personal energy. So most likely the things that you thrive at are one-on-one connections. You’re really good at just sitting with someone, listening to them, spending that heart-to-heart time with them, and that’s part of the reason why you’re here. And I do a lot of podcast episodes about how your dosha is related to your dharma, so go back to like the episodes around May, I did a lot on that. I have my “Doshas and Dharma” program, but part of your dharma, your purpose here is to be that warm, loving, just like personal person.

So use that, you know, maybe you can learn how to become a health coach. If you want to become an IIN health coach, I have a $1,500 off discount that I’m providing, and tons of bonuses, and support communities. So email me if you’re interested in that, [email protected], I’ll send you all the info. Again, if you’re interested in being a health coach, email me [email protected].

So maybe you could be a health coach, maybe you can be a life coach, maybe you could be a sex coach, maybe you could be a stylist, maybe you could be a graphic designer. Like there are so many things that you could do. Like I teach people this all the time, but things that come easily to you actually don’t come easily to other people. Like you may be able to look at a home and like totally redesign it and see how the space is being used, and see how you can move around furniture to make it a totally new space. And for other people, like that is so difficult for them, they can’t even imagine that.

So these skills that you naturally have, this is exactly what it is that you need to be using. And even things like there was a woman who was on my “Abundance Mindset” program, which was all about helping you take your business online, which she’ll definitely be running again. Check out abundancemindsetmasterclass.com to do the Master Class, and then I will email you when the program’s available again.

But anyway, she was a professional wife. I was like, “Wait, you’re like a wife, like an escort?” And she’s like, “No,” essentially she’s a wife to busy, working women because she had her own kids, she was a single mom, and she basically figured out how to, you know, have meals prepared, and do the things that the kids needed, and do their laundry, and decorate the house, and make like a really quick floral arrangement when you go to someone’s house. Like all of these things that she just had to learn that once her kids grew up, she realized that these are actually really valuable skills that a lot of busy women don’t have and they need someone to help.

So she’s essentially a wife to busy working women, which means that she helps them reorganize their kitchens, and you know, if they needed a gift for someone, how to set that up, and how to make their living space the most friendly for their kids, or whatever it is that they need to do, she helps them with that. So you don’t even need a degree to do that. Like you being yourself and sharing the things that you already know is enough. People just want to know that you are able to do it, you are able to be a busy, working mom and still get these things done, and a lot of women would just pay for that. So I share this example with you because it could be something as simple as that.

So learning to put yourself first, setting those boundaries, deciding what it is that you really want to do, what you’re really good at, what you thrive at, and then actually honoring and respecting yourself enough to follow through. This is a big one for kaphas because kaphas oftentimes call themselves lazy. And in Ayurveda, they even call kaphas lazy too, and I don’t think kaphas are lazy. I know they’re not lazy—why? Because they’re never lazy when it comes to other people—never.

You know, like my grandma, she’s super, super kapha, but if we come over, she has guests over, she’s in the kitchen from like three days before, buying groceries, cleaning the house, making sure everything’s perfect. She’s on her feet the whole time to serve. But then when it comes to herself, “Oh, did you exercise? Did you do this?” She says, “Oh, I’m too lazy,” whatever, she has these stories in her head, and it’s actually not true because when it comes to other people she’s 0% lazy.

So you need to treat yourself the way that you treat other people. You can’t only provide service to others. This is time to provide service for yourself. The things that you so easily generously donate to others—your time, your energy, your love, your patience—it’s time to give those things to yourself. And this is really what the practice of self-love is, which I have another podcast episode about is what is self-love really? And self-love is not just bath bombs, and rose petals, and whatever raw chocolates. It actually has to do with honoring yourself enough to do the things that you know you are meant to do on this planet. It’s to honor yourself to have that space to inquire, to check in, to live yourself in alignment with your truth. This is actually what self-love is.

So kaphas often say, “I need to practice more self-love,” but they go towards what we are marketed self-love is. And this has to do with, you know, these companies profiting off of it, so we’re marketed that self-love is, you know, taking bath bombs, or using expensive facial products, or you know, getting all of these other things that you don’t really need. And yes, it’s great to have awesome skincare products, and essential oils, and these things totally can upgrade your life.

But self-love is way more simple than that. You could just have one thing that really lights you up and really use it. Like you may just buy one crystal, and that’s your crystal, and you meditate with that crystal, you love that crystal, like that’s your go-to crystal. You don’t need all the crystals and all the chakras. You can have like your simple essential oils, you just got your peppermint, your frankincense, your grapefruit, that’s my favorite, it’s really good for kapha too.

Whatever it is, you could just have like five simple ones and those are your go-to and you really use those essential oils. So you don’t need more, you don’t need to go buy self-love or self-care from somewhere else. It’s something that you can cultivate within yourself. And remember, self-love comes from providing a space. So look at your schedule, how can you create space for yourself? And this may look like actually like blocking off time.

Like let’s say you’re waiting for your kids in the car. Instead of just sitting and listening to like NPR or whatever, like why don’t you use that time to journal? That’s your journaling time. Waiting in the car is now journaling time. And I’m not saying while you’re driving, when you’re parked, waiting for your kids. But you use that to check in with yourself, to write your intentions, to write what you’re manifesting, to have a little conversation with yourself. So it’s little things like that that can really go a long way.

The other thing that’s really, really big for kaphas is exercise. Now, movement is literally medicine for kaphas. The antidote for kapha is sweat. Sweat, you know, there’s these memes, it’s like sweat is fat crying. Like literally in Ayurveda they pretty much say that, they’re like sweat is kapha leaving the system. So when you are sweating you are allowing kapha to leave, you’re allowing that heaviness to leave. So you may feel like you’re just like stagnant, you’re stuck, you’re tired all day, maybe you need caffeine, you need sweets, you need something to keep you going. Well, actually what you need is exercise. I can guarantee you if you start your day with something that brings you to the point of sweat, you’re not going to need any kind of stimulant or any kind of nap.

Napping is not recommended in Ayurveda at all, but especially for kaphas. Because we’re not meant to sleep during the day, the sun is high during the day, and our energy levels are meant to be up. If you feel like you need a nap during the day, that means you’re not properly resting. So napping during the day is not honoring our circadian rhythm cycle and it’s not something that Ayurveda recommends. The only time they would recommend it is if you have like really bad depletion, you’ve been like hyper exhausted, or if your child, a child needs extra sleep.

But if you’re a kapha, that’s, you actually are supposed to have less sleep than the other doshas. In Ayurveda they recommend like five to seven hours of sleep a night for kaphas. I personally don’t, I think still go for your eighth ours, but in Ayurveda the reason why they say five to seven hours of sleep is because they’re sleeping at the right time. So in ancient Ayurvedic times they didn’t have electricity, so people were in bed like asleep by like 8:00 at night. So they were like deep into R.E.M. by 10:00 PM, which is the entry of pitta time. And they woke up, let’s say, at 3:00 in the morning, and then they started to meditate and do their spiritual practices 4:00 A.M. And they were done with meditating, yoga, oil-pulling, dry brushing, tongue-scraping, everything by 6:00 A.M. and they start to work in the farms.

So they could use less sleep because they’re sleeping at the right time. When you’re sleeping, especially before midnight, that sleep is more restorative for your body than the sleep that’s after midnight. And this is something that Ayurveda writes a lot about ,and it actually has to do with because the solar raise of the planet are still like here on earth, and when we’re sleeping during them it helps restore our energy in a deeper way.

Again, this is something that’s like an Ayurvedic thing. I don’t know if there’s like scientific western information about this, but you could try it yourself. Sleep for seven hours between 1:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M.—I’m like what’s math. Sleep for seven hours, between those hours, 1:00 A.M. and then do it at 9:00 P.M. or 10:00 P.M. and see how different you feel. When you sleep earlier you require less sleep.

So for kaphas, you don’t want to be taking naps, instead you want to be exercising. Now the best kind of exercise for kapha are exercises that you enjoy. That’s what I’m going to say above anything else. Before I go into what type, has to be something you enjoy, because kaphas naturally are less inclined to exercise because of that stagnancy, that heaviness, that earthiness, that grounding. It’s like they’re rooted to the ground. And that makes it hard for them to like jump around and to use up energy, but it’s actually what they really need. They need exercise more than any other dosha.

So if you do an exercise that you like, you’re going to show up. So for kaphas, that probably at the beginning is going to look like a Zumba class. That is like really what I recommend kaphas start with because a Zumba class, a dance class, it’s fun, you’re not like counting how many minutes you have left, it’s not super intense on the body, you could stop at any time that you want if you feel like you’re like super exhausted and it’s too hard for you, you’re getting lightheaded, you could just like stop. Zumba classes actually tend to like stop between songs, so it’s a really good type of exercise for kaphas because you’re opening your heart, you’re getting your body moving, you’re shaking out that stagnant energy, you’re having fun, and you’re also getting to that point of sweat.

Now once the Zumba gets a little easy for you, that’s when you can now move into a bit more of an intense exercise. So that more intense exercise is something that will have HIIT, High Intensity Interval Training within it. So HIIT exercises are the best for kapha because it allows your heart rate to go up, and then to come down, up and down, and you actually trigger more fat-burning from doing that. That’s going to help you burn more fat than just like steadily like running like a four on the treadmill for like 20 minutes. It’s actually going to be better if you sprint-walk, sprint-walk, sprint-walk. Because that switch allows your body to use more energy, and that’s going to make you burn more calories.

So something like a HIIT class, if you have a Class Pass anywhere you live, they have tons of classes. I do one that’s like a 27-minuute HIIT class that will do like mountain climbers, and burpees, and things with our weights. And it’s so fast, and it’s only 27 minutes that I really give it my all, and I’m like sweaty, but I’m not burning out my adrenals too and I’m not like, “Oh my god, like I still have over 30 minutes left.” And that’s when you start to go slow and psyching yourself out, not wanting to come.

So I recommend going to something that’s short, like a short HIIT class, it could be a 20-minute class, 27-minute class, whatever it is, something that you really get in there, you work your hardest, and then you get out. Because what you need to burn those calories is to work really hard. And kaphas, they’re the ones in the workout class who are going to try to get away with working out as little as possible. Like you’re going to see them, they’re in the corner, like, “You know, my back hurts. Oh, I can’t do this. Oh,” like standing, watching the teacher do it, and that’s not what you need. You know, it’s the first step is to show up at that workout class. Like it is better to show up at the workout class and not do anything and not show up.

So show up, but then from showing up really try to action. Like really try to do everything that you can do and the whole point of exercising is to push yourself. And this is where modern society is different than ancient Ayurvedic society because 5,000 years ago, this is like before Buddha and Jesus, guys, we were working all day. We were like out cultivating plants, and running from lions, like there was a lot of shit happening, you know. So we were sweating naturally every day. I mean just to get our food we needed to go out there and forage it, and that required a lot of energy. Whereas today, we’re very, very sedentary, and that’s why a kapha imbalance in the body is the most common imbalance right now in the western world.

I mean most Americans right now are overweight, 80% of Mexicans are overweight. So now obesity and overweightness in Mexico has gone past the U.S. And even in India now there’s a lot of overweight people. So this has to do with our junk food, our fast food culture, and our sedentary lifestyles. We’re essentially glued to these seats all day, and we’re not moving. So because of that, we can’t strictly follow the Ayurvedic approach that says like, for kaphas,, it says, “Just move until you start sweating and then like that’s enough.” Like if you were active all day, like that would be enough. But if you’re sitting all day, you’re working a desk job, you need to really move, and not just when you’re exercising, but in your lifestyle.

So I recommend like you can order these little stands that you can put on your desk on Amazon that will make your laptop a little bit higher so you could stand up while working. I use one. So I’m like standing up, like I wrote all of “Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda” while standing up. So just that something little like that allows you to stand up, allows you to move around, allows you to just like have that activity, and I listen to music, I’m like doing little squats, and plies, or balancing on one leg. Movement like that throughout your day is really going to help. It’s not just this like one hour isolated like this is when I exercise and the rest of the day I sit on my ass. It has to be within your lifestyle.

So little things like taking an afternoon walk, or if you’re meeting with a friend, instead of going to a coffee shop say, “Let’s meet for a walk outside.” Even if it’s cold, that’s even better, because we need that decorate sunlight, that decorate sunlight is nutrients, it’s medicine for us. And the sunlight that we get through a window does not have the UVB rays, so we’re not getting the same medicine. So doing things outside, taking phone calls when you’re walking, taking the stairs instead of taking the escalators, taking the longer way, parking your car on the other side of the parking lot so you have to walk. Little things like that add up.

And even when I’m like waiting at a stop light, instead of just like waiting, and waiting, I balance on one leg. Like I’m always—and then I’m like doing like little side lunges and stuff. Like I’m always moving, I’m trying to figure out ways I can include movement to my life. Like when I’m brushing my teeth, I’m never just standing there brushing my teeth. I’m doing hip circles, I’m practicing my belly dance moves, I’m doing releves, like I’m going on my tiptoes down, tiptoes down, tiptoes down. I’m always doing things to utilize new muscles in my body, which opens up new pathways in my mind.

If you loved this episode, I would love to send you a free gift, which is the first half of my “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type” e-book. This is an unreleased book different from my book “Eat Feel Fresh.” To get the first half free, all you gotta do is leave a review on iTunes, take a screenshot before you hit send, and send that screenshot to me at sahara, S-A-H-A-R-A, @eatfeelfresh.com and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book, “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type.” Namaste.